Wednesday, December 12, 2012

There might be a certain historical benefit concert for a certain hurricane for a certain coast of a certain North American country going on tonight, but that doesn't mean that the SPC Soapbox isn't worth looking into this evening. On today's edition of the SPC Soapbox: the third-party situation on the Wii U, how I'm tired of talking about Michael Pachter and his wrong predictions, and how celebrating Mega Man's 25th with a glorified fan-game is an absolute joke. These are unabashed rants, a perfect divergence of the love that the Hurricane Sandy concert is presenting this evening.

Wii U's third-party woes

I remember a time when Nintendo was saying that the Wii U was a hardcore gamer's system (perhaps it would also be a virgin or something). What ever happened to that? We arrived at E3 2012 to be ambushed with ports and less-than-spectacular titles that did very little to excite that group of gamer. Come the release window and ports on a new generation are somehow running worse than on 6-7 year-old systems. Of course, developers aren't used to the Wii U yet, but if it's so difficult to work with, and few gamers will probably buy any games on it to begin with, why even bother supporting the system?

I'm looking at the list of upcoming third-party games coming out for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. There's games like Grand Theft Auto V, Crysis 3, Metal Gear Solid: Revengeance, BioShock: Infinite, South Park: Stick of Boom, Army of Two: The Power of Two, Tomb Raider, Dark Souls II, Dead Space 3, and Dead Island: Rip You a New One (I'm making up a lot of these names as I couldn't care less about some of these titles) that are not coming to the Wii U. Some of these studios are saying that they would want to make an experience that only the Wii U could deliver. Where have I heard that before? Oh, right. The Wii. And we all know how wonderful the third-party support for that system was.

Sadly, Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel is not Wii U bound.(Okay, I couldn't really care less about this one.)

It's already bad on the Wii U. It hasn't even been a month and already Wii U owners have made their first petition to get a game on their system. The subject this time is Dark Souls II. Something tells me that you Wii U-only owners out there better start taking Advanced Petitions 101 classes because you're going to have to get used to doing online petitions for games you are not going to get. It shows how pathetic the third-party situation is on the Wii U already. Nintendo was saying that they were gunning for serious third-party support this time around. What happened? Could they not get Shigeru Miyamoto running around to different studios fast enough to essentially beg for support?

"We're almost to 6,000 out of 100,000 signatures, guys!"

I don't see why anyone would be optimistic in the Wii U getting proper third-party support. You either have to be very naive or you must be really in denial. It's not happening. Case closed. Thankfully, Nintendo consoles can live off the stellar first-party support, which continues to be strong. Just don't give me another New Super Mario Bros. game (though good) for at least five years.

I keep seeing a name on a more-than-once-a-weekly basis, and I am quite tired of seeing it. It is none other than Michael Pachter. Why in the blue hell does the game industry care so heavily on what this man has to say? Is it because he says what they want to hear? I know it's cool to hate on Nintendo because they suck, or they're kiddy, or they make games for babies, or they don't have any third-party support (ha-ha, see what I did there? Well, look at the paragraphs above, then!), or whatever the pathetic gamer that breathes through his mouth (heavily, I might add as he is overweight), guzzles Mountain Dew, types furiously with his Doritos chip-stained fingers, and curses at 12-year-olds on Xbox Live says, but for a man to continuously be quoted for every "Nintendo is doomed" comment he utters is absolutely ridiculous. I don't have a vested interest in gaming companies, but even I am sick of hearing and reading what he has to say.

And I know why his comments are continually quoted-- Nintendo fans are routinely gullible (hell, just look at any blatant troll topic on a Nintendo message board and look at all of the posts-- a successive troll attempt is usually committed) and, in their anger, they write up little retorts with their little fingers all coiled up with rage as they intently pound each key to form their argument. However, when will these people learn to stop giving Michael Pachter attention? He's like a troll who knows how to get Nintendo fans mad at him, and like clockwork, he succeeds every time. Just look at a Nintendo fan site like GoNintendo for proof of that concept. You see, as I say that I am ironically also giving attention and getting irked by this dim-witted analyst (well, for a different reason, but you get what I mean). I'll be through talking about him after this opinion piece, so no worries, friends.

He is not a bad looking guy, even in his fortune teller garb.

Regardless, for the last time I am going to argue his latest incorrect points once more. Recently Pachter was quoted as saying Nintendo does not look as good stock-wise compared to Sony or Microsoft. 1) Of course not. I don't how the company could when they deal solely in gaming and Sony and Microsoft have many more hands in many more cookie jars (i.e. computers, phones, tablets, TVs, etc.). 2) Tell me when Nintendo goes into junk status like Sony, and I'll give you that point, Pachter.

Perhaps I can understand now why the press gives Pachter so much power. He enforces a narrative that the press has been trying to push for ages now. Let's face it-- the press got the last generation hugely wrong. The Wii won and beat the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. You might not like it; I might not like it. It happened. There are honest to goodness people in the press and industry (such as Michael Pachter) who seem immensely bitter because their predictions failed horribly. I'm still waiting for Pachter to talk about how Vita isn't selling well, how Sony is doomed because of that, and his thoughts on the Kinect dying so suddenly in popularity, but I realize that will not happen. It won't give the man attention from his target audience, Nintendo fans. Well, congrats Michael Pachter. You have once again gotten the attention of the gaming world, and you only had to open your mouth and spew bile once more to do it.

Street Fighter x Mega Man

I'm preaching to the choir here, so forgive me if you already share my opinion on this or are sick of reading about this subject. Mega Man fans have been punched in the gut so many times that they probably will die from internal bleeding very soon. This all started with the cancellation of Mega Man Universe and then-- what was a severe shot to the gut-- the cancellation of Mega Man Legends 3. Yeah, I never cared if Mega Man Volnutt got off that frigid moon anyway. ...Not.

Then comes this past week an interesting 8-bit game to commemorate Mega Man's 25th anniversary this year. Oh, cool. I know Capcom is afraid to release anything that isn't a fighting game (heaven knows they can't even do their own franchises justice anymore-- Resident Evil 6, anyone?), so this seemed like a good option. It was a fighting game starring Mega Man and Street Fighter characters. Wait a second. Haven't I seen this project before? Oh, yeah.. IT WAS A FAN GAME.

When Capcom stated that they essentially couldn't even be bothered to develop their own game for Mega Man's 25th and instead were publishing a fan-game... Well, I nearly vomited out of disgust. Okay, I didn't nearly vomit out of disgust-- that's hyperbole, but I was generally hot and bothered. I mean, seriously? Capcom didn't even make the game. Some being from the Internet did all the work for them. I think that says it all about Capcom's opinion of their former mascot. When they can't even be bothered to make their own content and they go onto highlight a glorified fan-game, you know they no longer give a damn. Well, Capcom, I'm afraid I no longer give a damn.

...The game does look cool, though.

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Perhaps my rantings sparked something in your mind that you wish to comment on. If not, then you probably don't take this hobby too darn seriously, which is just fine. It means you probably have a fulfilling life. For the 95% of us left, keep your comments clean and enjoy the discussion.